Some good points, and I won't fight with you too much here, but I do have a couple things I want to go over. You say that Namco hasn't tried to create a unique universe for Pac-Man. Therein lies the problem. They HAVE tried. They're trying right now. The Ghostly Adventures television show is unique, fun, and pretty inventive in its own right. The characters are new and differently designed with personality and backstory. Is it 100% original? No. Is it something new? Yes.
But here's where we get to the problem. People consider Pac-Man to be so iconic, even if they don't consciously know this, that they are actually against the idea of change. Namco is trying to rebrand the character with a new universe, one that has few ties to the maze games of old, but people still stick to the classic. You don't know how many people I've seen watch the new show or see the new games in action and go "why does Pac-Man have legs? Why is there a city? He's just a ball that eats dots in a maze! This is stupid!"
Ignorance and refusing to accept change are, unfortunately, a running theme with Pac-Man because of how incredibly iconic he is. He is the grandfather of video games, the game that spiced up the arcade scene far before Mario ever did, and it wasn't just because it appealed to women. That helped, but that's not the main reason. It was a fun, unique, amazing game that no one had ever seen before. Everything up to that point was alien shooters or tank shooters or plane games. It was all stuff we see in every day life or on television, but Pac-Man was something completely new and inventive. That stuck with people, which is why it's considered
the most popular arcade game of all time, grossing $3.5 billion during its time. If you look a little further down, you'll see
Pac-Man is rated the most popular arcade game of all time, easily beating out Street Fighter, Mario, and Mortal Kombat by itself, not including spinoffs. People loved it so much that Pac-Man has been around for more than 30 years and people STILL play the original game. Hell, I'm willing to bet you people still play the original Pac-Man far more than anyone plays the original Mario Bros. or even Super Mario Bros. nowadays.
Combined.
I unfortunately can't find sales numbers to do it justice like you did for the Wii U and 3DS sales of the new Ghostly Adventures game, but looking at the iOS app store reviews for Pac-Man, it has
over 17,500 reviews. That's a lot, and that's not including the amount of people who simply downloaded it and never reviewed it. Considering each of those people who reviewed it bought the game at it's current price of $2.99, that's over $50,000 in sales from a small app, and again is not including the amount of sales of people who never even reviewed the game, which, when it comes to app store stuff, is the greater majority of people.
Do you see what I'm getting at? Pac-Man may not be as popular now as he was then, but he still holds an incredibly important part of history and a special place in people's hearts. Pac-Man fans may not be as numerous as Mario or Sonic fans, but we're still here, and we still enjoy this character we've cared about for years because we recognize the importance of him to gaming culture rather than just looking at sales figures and numbers. You're looking at current Pac-Man. We, the fans, are looking at him as a whole, his history, his importance to gaming, and his legacy, be that what it will. Fanboyism speaks for a lot of things, as does antifanboyism. I personally don't understand why people like Gears of War, and I could go on and on about how I find it boring and dull, but I don't because I understand how its unique take on arena shooters paved the way for many solid games that followed it. It's not my favorite title, but I don't deny its impact. Iconic doesn't mean sales. It means memorable or remarkable, and Pac-Man has been that.